A melamine decorative laminate is hard and excellent in water resistance, stain resistance and abrasion resistance. Accordingly, it has been used in a variety of fields, for applications such as furniture, building walls, interiors of automobiles, etc. In the melamine decorative laminate, a melamine resin-impregnated decorative paper is used as a decorative layer provided on its surface, while a phenol resin-impregnated Kraft paper, a glass fiber paper coated with a thermosetting resin and a flame retardant, or aluminum is used as its core layer. There are many melamine decorative laminates, which are made of various combinations to meet a variety of requirements. In all melamine decorative laminates, a melamine resin-containing decorative layer is formed on the surface to offer decorative laminates with excellent abrasion resistance and stain resistance. While there are such benefits, general melamine decorative laminates are hard and thus unsuitable for processing such as bending. Because of this, melamine resins that allow a 6R to 8R bending, so-called melamine resins for post-forming applications, have been developed. Post form decorative laminates produced by using the melamine resins can be heat bent and have been used in applications such as doors.
In the fields which require not only bending properties but also non-flammability, a melamine decorative laminate comprising a combination of a melamine decorative layer and aluminum is used (for example, see Patent Literature 1). In this case, to bond the melamine decorative layer and the aluminum together, a layer of phenol resin-impregnated kraft paper (phenol resin layer) is needed. The melamine decorative laminate thus produced is thicker for the phenol resin layer, so that there are limitations on the bending properties of the laminate and the bending limit is 4R even when the laminate is heated and bent.